Latest news with #Universal
Time of India
2 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Steven Spielberg showcases action-packed scenes from his upcoming untitled movie
Steven Spielberg may be in his 70s, but retirement is not on his list. At a special event in Los Angeles on June 26, he showed the first behind-the-scenes look at his next film. It happened during a grand moment, Universal named a brand-new screening room after him. The event saw many big names in the audience, Vin Diesel, Jeff Goldblum, Ava DuVernay, Seth Rogen, and more. Spielberg stood on stage and said the theatre dedication meant a lot, calling it a full-circle moment since Universal gave him his first break over 50 years ago. Emily Blunt steals the spotlight in dramatic clip While the new movie is still untitled, the footage got everyone excited. Spielberg didn't confirm the rumoured UFO theme, but the scenes gave hints. Emily Blunt's character, caught in a tense situation, was chased by men in black cars. At a crucial point, her car crashes into a speeding train. She and co-star Josh O'Connor barely escape through the windshield. Footage of Steven Spielberg's film starring Emily Blunt was revealed: In a sequence with Josh O'Connor, Blunt's busted sedan collides with a speeding train. They attempt an escape through the broken windshield as the vehicle gets chewed alive between screeching metal & tracks. There were explosions, farmhouses getting wrecked, and eerie control rooms that looked like something out of a space lab. Colin Firth looked like the villain, calm and scary, possibly leading some underground mission. The tone felt dark and gripping. Steven Spielberg still has stories to tell The film also stars Colman Domingo and Eve Hewson, but their roles weren't fully clear in the preview. Spielberg said the movie is coming in 2026 and he's still excited about telling big stories. He praised young filmmakers too but avoided naming favourites, saying too many impress him right now. As he sees the official opening of his namesake theatre on the Universal lot, Steven Spielberg says he has no plans to retire…ever… from making movies. Talking about Ryan Coogler's recent film Sinners, Spielberg said, 'It's a personal story and a big crowd-pleaser too. That gives me hope for the future of movies in theatres.' A night to remember at Universal The new 'Spielberg Theater' seats 250 people and has all the latest tech, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, and can even show old-school 35mm and 70mm films. After the dedication, guests enjoyed sushi and cocktails, while an exhibit showed off props from Spielberg's movies. Fans saw the original E.T. bike and Laura Dern's outfit from Jurassic Park.
NBC News
16 hours ago
- Politics
- NBC News
Supreme Court upholds phone and internet subsidy program for underserved areas
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a challenge to a Federal Communications Commission program that subsidizes phone and internet services in underserved parts of the country. In a decision written by Justice Elena Kagan, the court ruled that Congress did not exceed its authority when it enacted a 1996 law that set up the Universal Service Fund, which requires telecommunications services to submit payments to subsidize 'universal service.' The court also said the FCC could delegate its authority to a private corporation called the Universal Service Administrative Company to administer the fund. "Nothing in these arrangements, either separately or together, violates the Constitution," Kagan wrote. The justices were divided 6-3, with three conservative justices dissenting. The fees, generally passed on to customers, raise billions of dollars a year that are spent on providing phone and internet services, including for schools, libraries and hospitals. Challengers said the program violates the 'nondelegation doctrine,' a theory embraced by conservatives that says Congress has limited powers to delegate its lawmaking authority to the executive branch. Lower courts were divided over the issue, with both the FCC and a coalition led by Consumers' Research, a conservative group, asking the Supreme Court to weigh in. Opponents call the Universal Service Fund fee a form of tax and say only elected officials, not bureaucrats, have the power to impose it. The 1996 law is particularly problematic because it does not tell the FCC how much money it can raise via the program, the challengers' lawyers argued. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority that has undercut the authority of government agencies in a series of recent decisions. That had led some commentators to wonder if it would use the FCC case to turbocharge the nondelegation doctrine. The current court has not yet embraced the nondelegation doctrine, although in different contexts, a majority of justices have indicated support for it. If the court did reinvigorate the idea, agencies would face new limits on their powers to implement existing laws and programs that seek to enforce open-ended laws enacted by Congress. Although the Trump administration has sought to weaken federal agencies by firing thousands of workers, its lawyers defended the FCC in the case. The administration took over the case from the Biden administration, which had appealed the case to the Supreme Court. President Donald Trump has tried to expand the powers of the presidency at the expense of Congress and the judiciary, so his administration's position in the case is consistent with that approach.
The Verge
17 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Verge
M3gan 2.0 is a fun upgrade that's a little too self-aware
Universal and Blumhouse's first M3gan feature came out of nowhere with a premise so ridiculous and campy that it was hard not to be at least a little intrigued. Equal parts Child's Play and Small Wonder, M3gan was undeniably silly with its story about an AI-powered doll who sang Sia's 'Titanium' and danced around as she chopped people's heads off. But the movie struck a near-perfect balance between straight horror and comedy that made it a delight to see in a crowded theater. M3gan also killed at the box office, to the tune of $180 million against a modest $12 million budget. That made it all too easy for Universal to greenlight and fast-track a bigger, more expensive sequel, but it was unclear where, exactly, the new franchise might go next. There's a pointed cleverness to the way returning director Gerard Johnstone and writer Akela Cooper evolve their murderous doll's story with M3gan 2.0. And you can see in the film's action-forward sci-fi turn how much more money was put into its production. Like many horror sequels, though, M3gan 2.0 has a tough time living up to its predecessor as it brings back the original cast to take on a few new AI threats. It's by no means a terrible movie, but it does get a bit too caught up trying to wax philosophic about the dangers of a robot uprising when it should be more focused on being a scary good time. Though most of the world has moved on two years after M3gan's (voiced by Jenna Davis, and physically portrayed by Amie Donald) first killing spree, memories of what happened still haunt teenager Cady (Violet McGraw) and her roboticist-turned-author aunt Gemma (Allison Williams). While Gemma's involvement in M3gan's creation tarnished her reputation as an inventor, she's become a well-known advocate for stronger controls on artificial intelligence. At Gemma's new foundation, her longtime friends Tess (Jen Van Epps) and Cole (Brian Jordan Alvarez) now work to develop different kinds of technologies, like powered exoskeletons that are meant to help humans stay competitive as simple, efficient robots become a larger part of the labor market. The last thing Gemma — who insists on minimal screen time in their new house — wants is for Cady to follow in her STEM footsteps. But Cady has a knack for programming things in her own right, and she's very good about keeping it all hidden. Like Gemma, Cady's still very traumatized by her last experience with M3gan. She knows how quickly M3gan's hard-coded imperative to love her can turn violent. Cady wouldn't dream of trying to bring M3gan, who was destroyed, back 'better.' But the same can't be said for certain people within the US military. Though most everyone remembers how much of a disaster M3gan was, technically speaking, the remote-controlled Autonomous Military Engagement Logistics and Infiltration Android known as 'Amelia' (Ivanna Sakhno) is a different kind of machine. Amelia's got all of her older sister's same bells, whistles, and killing skills, but none of M3gan's buggy, emotional code. Amelia seems like she's the next generation of unmanned warfare right up until the point when she goes rogue and starts murdering people her handlers don't mean for her to. Whereas the first M3gan was a fairly straightforward horror flick, 2.0 switches things up by leading with a strong sci-fi energy that feels like a cross between Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Alita: Battle Angel. Amelia isn't from the future, but she is very much a terminator who snaps necks and kicks people's jaws off with a cold brutality that feels more vicious than the first M3gan's kills. Despite their gore, Amelia's action sequences are delightfully electric and fun to watch as she sets off on a hunt to find innovators in the AI field. But they often lack a suspenseful quality because of how most of her victims don't have any reliable way of defending themselves. M3gan 2.0 seems to know that there's only so much killer-robot-on-human violence one can watch before the schtick gets a bit boring, and so it telegraphs Amelia and M3gan's showdown basically from the jump. Because the film has to bring M3gan back and can't rush headlong into the machines' confrontation, though, it spends a fair amount of its runtime trying to pad Gemma and Cady's arc out with milquetoast ideas about parenthood in the age of AI. Once M3gan's back and in an uneasy alliance with the humans, the story becomes heavy-handed in its messaging about the emotional rifts that technology can cause within family units. Those beats — many of which play like direct comments on the proliferation of generative AI in the real world — might work a bit better if the movie's human characters didn't feel so stiff. But the most compelling performance here comes from Davis, who played M3gan as a slightly more sophisticated, complicated version of herself. While M3gan 2.0 has its moments, the original's novelty feels lacking here because of how preoccupied it is with aping elements of bigger, blockbuster-type sci-fi features. And despite the increased scale and ambition — and the 2.0 in the title — the sequel doesn't end up feeling like much of an upgrade. M3gan 2.0 also stars Aristotle Athari, Timm Sharp, and Jemaine Clement. The movie is in theaters now.
Irish Times
19 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Lorde: Virgin review – Glittery, gritty and fabulously absorbing
Virgin Artist : Lorde Label : Universal Early fame, the evidence would suggest, is both blessing and curse. Few artists will know what it is like to have a global number one, as Ella Yelich-O'Connor, aka Lorde , did with her debut single, Royals, in 2013. But then came the tricky question of what happened next. How could she follow up the overnight celebrity she achieved while still a teenager? Where could she go after Royals? She went everywhere, in a way. Her LP Melodrama , from 2017, was a splurgy, let-it-all-out reckoning with early adulthood. It found her connecting with Jack Antonoff , producer of Taylor Swift, and in the process frying the brain of the hitmaker Max Martin, who concluded that her single Green Light 'broke all the rules' in terms of its structure and tempo. Melodrama was a hit, but the drama was only starting. That D-word arrived in earnest with the shadows-in-sunshine of Solar Power , a folksy phantasmagoria full of David Lynch weirdness that divided her fans. READ MORE Lorde told The Irish Times this month that Solar Power was a process she had to go through – if only to come out the other side. It sounds like a lot of effort to go to. Still, you can appreciate the wisdom of her words when listening to Virgin, its glittery, gritty and fabulously absorbing follow-up. Here, triumphantly and irresistibly, is a brooding blockbuster as visceral and emotionally gory as its predecessor was darkly becalmed. [ Lorde on weight loss and body image: 'It's this evil little rite of passage for a lot of women' Opens in new window ] Since Royals, Lorde has emerged as one of pop's pre-eminent shape changers. She has characterised Virgin as self-conscious reconnection with her foundational years as a pop star – with the wide-eyed adolescent who wrote Ribs and Team, and who became a global sensation. A lot happens in a decade, however. Inevitably, then, her fourth album has a grown-up, lived-in quality absent from her early work. She's only 28, but already there are miles on the clock. Lorde feels the weight of it on What Was That, a propulsive teaser release about learning to fully inhabit your body while overcoming an unhappy break-up. Bad romances and physical manifestation of your trauma make for a rather abstruse pairing – even more so when taking into consideration the fact that Lorde has talked about using MDMA (name-checked in the chorus) to treat her anxiety, in particular her crippling stage fright. Yet for all the tune's esoteric qualities – few of us will microdose in order to overcome workplace anxiety – there is something readily comprehensible about the bone-deep nature of Virgin. That is the case whether Lorde is talking about going off her birth control or taking a pregnancy test, on Clearblue, or discussing her tomboyish qualities, on the menacingly woozy Man of the Year, a gothic weepy sure to take its place among the pantheon of Lorde ballads. Amid all the yearning and gurning, much of Virgin is straightforwardly and fantastically relentless. Lorde goes retro electropop with a vengeance on If She Could See Me Now. Certain to become a future fan favourite, it is a slow-mo synthwave wonder and the closest the LP comes to the cyberpunk confessional energy of Girl, So Confusing, her collaboration with Charli XCX from 2024. A work of many shapes and moods, Virgin sees catharsis turn to confessional on Favourite Daughter. It is a love letter to the singer's poet mother that blends the blinking-in-the-sunlight yearning of Pure Heroine , Lorde's first album, with a deep weariness of fame. (She has learned that it means more to her to be respected by her parents than to be cheered by strangers.) She bares her heart in a different way on Current Affairs. It opens a dolorous Joy Division-style bass riff, the gloomy tone reflected in the lyrics ('Mama, I'm so scared ... I'm crying on the phone'). Slathered in angst and regret, the lyrics scan as a meditation on a fling gone wrong ('on the boat it was pure and true'). It's a love song as noirish exorcism – as the best love songs always are. In that conversation with The Irish Times Lorde agreed that Virgin had an almost 'body horror' quality: it is tumultuous, fully in the moment and at times more about the texture than the lyrics. Rapturous, at times a little out of control, it's scarily great fun and – this seems to have been the point all the time – the spiritual opposite of Solar Power. The light has faded, darkness has crept in and Lorde is looking to the stars and re-engaging with her sense of wonder.
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Is Universal a Better Value for Travelers Than Disney Right Now?
Vacationers often talk about the high prices for a Disney World vacation. But neighboring Universal Orlando Resort isn't exactly low-cost, either. With the addition of Epic Universe, the third theme park within the complex, Universal delivers more value than ever before. Read Next: Find Out: But how does it stack up against Walt Disney World Resort? Both resorts frequently offer deals on tickets, so the price you pay depends on when you book. estimated the average three-day vacation for a family of four to Universal to cost roughly $3,555. That includes park tickets, hotel, and food. recently estimated the average cost for a three-day trip to Disney World Resort to cost roughly $2,130. Right now, Disney is offering some incredible deals, including three-day, three-park tickets for adults starting at $89 per day and 50% off for kids. This offer does not include Magic Kingdom, the flagship park of the resort. If you stay on-site at a Disney hotel, you can access the water park for free the day you check in. Right now, a three-day, three-park ticket, which can include one day at the new Epic Universe, starts at $117 for adults. If you want a four-park pass with the ability to move between Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure and the Volcano Bay waterpark, with a separate day devoted to Epic Universe, tickets start at $150 per day. Universal's 'value' level resorts start at around $100 per night, with luxury hotels like the Hard Rock and Loew's Portofino Bay costing $900 per night or more depending on the time of year, according to Disney's All-Star 'value' resorts are slightly higher, with listings starting at $157 per night on the Disney website. Both Disney and Universal offer their version of 'fast passes' — Express Pass for Universal and Lightning Lanes for Disney. Express Passes for Universal start at $120, except for the new Epic Universe, which start at $130, according to Some Universal Resort hotels offer Express Passes to guests as part of the deal, along with early entry. Disney's Lightning Lane pricing is a bit more complicated, since you can pay per ride or buy passes for multiple rides. Prices can range from $15 per person for a Single Pass up to $449 at peak times for the Premier Pass, according to Disney World Resort in Orlando features four theme parks and two water parks: Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom, as well as the Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach waterparks. Universal Resort has three theme parks: Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, and the new Epic Universe, plus the Volcano Bay waterpark. Both parks offer a mix of family-friendly rides and entertainment, character dining experiences, and world-class roller coasters. Universal tickets, hotels, and fast passes tend to be slightly less expensive, in general — although Disney's current deals bring ticket prices down substantially, especially for kids. For the money, Disney offers a ton of value, with more parks, and free entry into two water parks for hotel guests. If you can plan your trip during off-peak times, you might be able to avoid the hefty investment in Lightning Lanes. Staying on-site to access the parks earlier than guests who aren't staying at a Disney resort may also allow you to squeeze more fun, and less waiting, into your trip. Similarly, staying on-site at Universal Resorts can give you access to Express Passes, early entry and other perks, leading to cost savings and a better overall experience. Answering the question of which Orlando theme park provides more value depends on your family's interests and passions, since prices are comparable and depend on your choice of hotel, meals, and perks like fast passes or character dining experiences. More From GOBankingRates 10 Unreliable SUVs To Stay Away From Buying This article originally appeared on Is Universal a Better Value for Travelers Than Disney Right Now?
